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I am so thankful this book is in the world (all 740 pages of it!). And I’m more than thankful for its author. Dr. Thomas has served our church faithfully for years and will (sadly) soon be leaving us for a pastoral call in South Carolina. He preached an incredible sermon series on Acts at our Sunday evening services for so long, and then dedicated this book to the Sunday evening congregation. What a treasure this book is. Thank you for writing it, my friend.

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Continuing along with my “what we’ve been doing this spring” theme is our visit to Trustmark Park last week (on John’s birthday!) to see the Mississippi State University Bulldogs take on the University of Southern Mississippi Golden Eagle. Trustmark is where the Mississippi Braves, the AA farm team for Atlanta, play.We had GREAT seats close to home plate. I was given our seats for free from Spectrum Events just for hosting a ticket giveaway on Twitter and Facebook! Thanks, Spectrum!

It’s pretty clear who we were rooting for. 😉 My husband and both of my granddaddies are State men! OT proudly wore his shirt and let Bully share his seat.

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Each week, The Broke and the Bookish hosts the Top Ten Tuesday. Click here to see other participants!
This week’s theme is “10 books you want to see turned into movies,” and I admit at the outset that I’m playing fast and loose with the terms of the meme. Some books are just fine as movies (theater or TV) but others demand to be TV series! There’s just too much goodness, especially in a series of books, to be confined to one movie. So I’m cheating. 🙂

1. Diana Peterfreund’s Ivy League series, more commonly known as “the Secret Society Girl books,” is my number-one top wish of all! These books are just pure college heaven. I adore the world Peterfreund created for Amy Haskell at Eli University, and the secret society, Rose and Grave. The books are smart, funny, sad… everything you want! And Poe! Oh, Poe, one of the best love interests EVER! I would absolutely adore seeing this as a TV series. ABC Family, are you reading?!

2. Heather Webber’s Lucy Valentine series. Lucy has a touch of ESP and can find missing objects by touching something else a person owns. She uses her gift to find missing people and to reunite lost loves. These books have a wacky cast of characters from Lucy herself to her boyfriend, her parents, her friends, and her grandmother. Even Lucy’s pets have great personalities. There’s way too much here for one movie, so I would love to see this as a TV series. Women would eat this stuff up!

3. Where, oh where, has Diane Setterfield gone? She wrote one fabulous book and then disappeared! The Thirteenth Tale is creepy, gothic goodness, a mystery spanning generations. I read it (listened to the audio, actually, which was fabulous) when I was pregnant in 2007, and I still get the creepy-crawlies when I think about it. This would make such a cool movie. Or a nice little miniseries production on PBS!

4. The Hex Hall series by Rachel Hawkins. Such a fun and unique story! I admit that I haven’t even read the second book yet (gasp!) but I loved the first book. There will be a third, so maybe a TV series would be best. Is this meme making it clear that I don’t watch a lot of movies? 😉

5. I’ve only read the first two installments of Julie Hyzy’s White House Chef series, but I’m hooked. I love getting a peek into the behind-the-scenes action at the White House, the recipes included in the books, and chef Ollie’s sleuthing. There’s more suspense in these books than in a lot of cozies, and I like that. You shouldn’t be surprised that I want to see this as a TV series, too.

6. So far, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins is still the best book I’ve read all year. It has romance! Paris! A believable female protagonist! A super-swoony love interest! And did I mention Paris? This would be a fabulous movie, a delightful popcorn rom-com to see with your girlfriends or your mom. Want.

7. Here’s another series of which I’ve only read the first book. I just have too many things on my to-read list! Still, I know that Diana Peterfreund’s “killer unicorns” series would make a really cool movie, or even a series of movies. It’s got a very unique hook, and it takes place in Italy. Imagine the cool scenery and CGI effects needed to create the unicorns!

8. My book club chose Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! as our first book and we had a wonderful, deeply intellectual discussion about it that lasted nearly three hours. The story is too fantastical to believe and seems made for the big screen. If you’ve read it, imagine what a wacky and wonderful job Tim Burton or Baz Lurhmann could do with this! Wow! I call movie for sure!

9. I really, truly love Shannon Hale’s book, Austenland, in which a modern-day girl wishing for love travels to England and immerses herself in a role-playing game that mimics the Regency period. There’s already a fabulous similar movie called Lost in Austen, but in that one, the girl literally goes back in time. This one is just different enough that it would make a fun movie. It’s got all the elements of a great chick flick!

10. And finally, a movie I would really love to see is Jenny B. Jones’s Save the Date. Jones writes such great characters in this fun, sweet, and unique story. I want to see this happen!

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During spring break (which, yes, was almost a month ago!), OT and I took a little trip to New Orleans with my mom and aunt. Our families have all ended up in Hattiesburg, which is less than two hours from New Orleans, so it makes for quite a fun day trip. OT has never been to the Audubon Zoo, so a visit was in order! Somehow we managed to go on a blistering-hot day. It was just about miserable! Here are some photos of our fun!

(And remember, we don’t use OT’s real name or show his face on public parts of the Internet. So yeah, I got lots of photos of his face that day, but I also made sure to get some of the back of his head for blogging purposes!)

“Freen-goes,” as OT used to call them. ❤

Elephants were my favorite as a kid, and now they’re OT’s, too. Aww!

The white tigers are beautiful, and this one was headed to play with a giant ball, just like a kitten. 😉

OT got to pet a turtle.

And a goat.

And he surprised us with his bravery!

And then he climbed a tree!

It’s amazing how close you can get to the giraffes. I didn’t zoom in for this shot at all.

Hullo!

That’s the truth!

We had a great day, despite the wicked heat. We ditched our plans to mosey around the French Quarter and instead went home for cool showers and an early bedtime!

I’ll be back later this week with photos from a fun baseball game and a trip back to New Orleans for the aquarium and a music and food festival.